Epstein Data Wiki

Marvin Minsky

Properties2
tagsperson, academia, mit, artificial-intelligence, science-philanthropy
aliasesMarvin L. Minsky

11 min read

BornAugust 9, 19271
DiedJanuary 24, 2016, Boston1
PositionsMIT faculty, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, from 1958; co-founder, MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 1959; founding member of the MIT Media Lab and Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, from 19851
HonoursA.M. Turing Award, 19691
Financial and travel recordEpstein’s C.O.U.Q. Foundation instructed JPMorgan on December 21, 2007 to wire $50,000 to an account in Minsky’s name; a supplementary card in Ghislaine Maxwell’s name on Epstein’s JPMorgan account charged $195.20 for a Minsky airline ticket in August 200523
RoleChose invitees for, and was described in Epstein foundation publicity as organiser of, the science conference Epstein convened in the U.S. Virgin Islands in December 2011456
AllegationNamed in Virginia Giuffre’s deposition of May 3, 2016 in Giuffre v. Maxwell, unsealed in August 2019; Minsky had died three months before the deposition was taken and no response from him exists71

Marvin Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist, a co-founder of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and a founding member of the MIT Media Lab.1 The released files record a financial and social relationship with Jeffrey Epstein: an instruction from Epstein’s C.O.U.Q. Foundation to wire $50,000 to an account in Minsky’s name in December 2007, an airline ticket for Minsky charged in 2005 to a supplementary card in Ghislaine Maxwell’s name on Epstein’s JPMorgan account, and Minsky choosing invitees for, and being described in Epstein foundation publicity as organiser of, the science conference Epstein convened in the U.S. Virgin Islands in December 2011.2356 Flight logs read into the record in Giuffre v. Maxwell list Minsky as a passenger on two Epstein flights in March 2001.8 In a deposition taken on May 3, 2016 and unsealed in August 2019, Virginia Giuffre named Minsky among men she said she had been directed to have sex with.7 Minsky had died on January 24, 2016, three months before that deposition was taken and more than three years before it became public; no response from him to the allegation exists.17

Background

Minsky graduated from Harvard in 1950 and received a PhD in mathematics from Princeton University in 1954.1 He joined the faculty of MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1958 and co-founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, now the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the following year.1 In 1985 he became a founding member of the MIT Media Lab and was named Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences.1 He received the A.M. Turing Award in 1969 and wrote The Society of Mind (1985) and The Emotion Machine (2006).1 He died at a Boston hospital on January 24, 2016, aged 88.1

Payments and travel

A memorandum of December 21, 2007 from “Jeffrey Epstein/ COUQ Foundation” to “Amy @ JP Morgan,” signed and sent by fax, reads: “Please wire Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000) from the above account to: Bank name: Brookline Bank … Account Name: Marvin Minsky.”2 The document is an instruction to the bank rather than a record of a completed transfer; the routing and account numbers are redacted in the image.2 The C.O.U.Q. Foundation was a charitable foundation Epstein used to make donations.

An August 2005 statement for Epstein’s JPMorgan credit-card account records the charge on printed page 7 of 10, within a section for a supplementary card in Ghislaine Maxwell’s name that runs from printed page 4 to printed page 8 of the same statement: a charge of $195.20 to Southwest Airlines dated August 11, 2005, itemised as a passenger ticket from Los Angeles to Albuquerque departing August 13 in the name “MINSKY/MARVIN.”3

On August 2, 2011 Epstein wrote to Minsky, “did you receive the consulting agreements, lets think about a conference called NEXT. what s next in AI. medicine, etc.”9 No consulting agreement between Epstein and Minsky, signed or unsigned, and no payment made under one, appears among the documents cited on this page.9

The December 2011 conference

Planning for a science meeting referred to in Epstein’s office as the “Minsky conference,” and in Epstein’s August 2 message above as a conference “called NEXT,” ran through the autumn of 2011. A message to Epstein of October 3 put four questions to him on Cecile de Jongh’s behalf: whether the dates of December 9–12 suited him, whether a further guest could be invited “as per Minsky request,” whether participants could bring “their immediate 2nd in command … as per Minsky request,” and whether first-class tickets could be booked for participants and their spouses.4 The same day de Jongh told Epstein she was still working out the hotel contract and, with a deadline the next day, had told the hotel 12 rooms for 8 participants, with rooms held in case some brought assistants “or we add a few other people as Minsky has suggested”; Epstein replied “ok,” and she then asked, “Will you be hosting them on LSJ at all?”10

On November 11, 2011 Minsky wrote to Epstein proposing further invitees: “Dear Jeffrey, I know it is late, but here are 10 extremely smart and interesting people. (Probably, only 2 or 3 could come on short notice.)” and Epstein replied, “verner vinge.. , otherwise we are full.”11 When Epstein queried two names on the participant list at the end of November, de Jongh answered: “Marvin invited them. I only got their names when they responded to Marvin’s emails whilst confirming their attendance.”5 On December 2 Epstein wrote to a correspondent, “next weekend starting fri i have minsky , novak etc. to the island,, you are welcome, we will fly back on sunday. the 11th.”12

An article circulated for Epstein’s foundation afterwards described the meeting as the first of a projected series on global catastrophic risk, “organized by cognitive scientist, Marvin Minsky,” and named Martin Nowak, Lawrence Krauss and Gregory Benford among the other scientists; it is Epstein’s own publicity rather than an independent record of who attended.6 It quotes Minsky: “We need to identify the greatest threats to our Earth, but we also need to prioritize them.”6

Contact with Epstein’s office

On March 21, 2011 Lesley Groff, Epstein’s executive assistant, reported to him under the subject line “Marvin Minsky” that a member of Minsky’s household had telephoned to thank Epstein for an email and a call, that Minsky was “doing well,” and that he “would love to speak with you but probably not be ready for a conversation until more toward the end of the week.”13

On June 6, 2014 Epstein’s office wrote to Minsky that Epstein “will be up at Harvard June 21/22” and asked whether he would be available to meet him. Minsky replied on June 8, “Yes, thanks. We will be in Spain for a week, but will be back before June 21,” and on June 13 Epstein’s office wrote that Epstein “will come see you on June 21st.”14 A schedule Lesley Groff sent on June 18 and forwarded within Epstein’s office on June 20 lists a 5:30pm appointment on Saturday, June 21 at Minsky’s home; a Google Calendar reminder for the same entry went out that evening.1516 These records show a specific time was scheduled for the visit. No document cited on this page confirms that the visit took place; the exchanges record an arrangement being made, not a meeting held.1415

Flight records

Epstein’s pilot David Rodgers was deposed in Giuffre v. Maxwell and taken through his flight logs. He named the passengers on a March 29, 2001 flight from Teterboro to Santa Fe as Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Adam Perry Lang, Virginia Roberts, a woman he identified only as “Banu,” Marvin Minsky and Henry Jarecki, seven in all.8 Asked whether he remembered two of the passengers, Rodgers answered, “I remember Henry. I don’t really remember Marvin.”8 He named the passengers on the March 31, 2001 return flight from Santa Fe to Palm Beach as Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts, Nadia Bjorlin, Henry Jarecki and Marvin Minsky, also seven.8 A schedule of flights filed earlier in the same case by Giuffre’s counsel lists Minsky on both flights.17 The transcript was unsealed by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on August 9, 2019.8

The allegation in Giuffre v. Maxwell

In a deposition taken on May 3, 2016 in Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), Maxwell’s counsel asked Virginia Giuffre to “Name the other politically connected and financially powerful people that Ghislaine Maxwell told you to go have sex with?” Giuffre answered with a list of names, some of them people she said she could not identify, which included “Marvin Minsky.”7 The transcript was filed under seal and was unsealed by the Second Circuit on August 9, 2019.7

Minsky died on January 24, 2016, three months before that deposition was taken and more than three years before the testimony became public. No response from him to the allegation exists and none could: he was never asked about it in his lifetime, and no statement from him on the matter is recorded here. Statements made after his death by relatives or by institutions he was associated with are not his answer and are not treated as one on this page. He was not a party to the litigation. The documents cited on this page are those this review found bearing on his relationship with Epstein; a search of the released files’ machine-read text returns well over a thousand further documents for the surname, most naming other people or unrelated to him, and that search is a floor rather than a count, because the machine-read text of these files is unreliable and misses pages whose names it cannot read; and a search of the RECAP federal-court archive under “Marvin Minsky” found no proceeding in which he was a party.718

Footnotes

  1. “Marvin Minsky, ‘father of artificial intelligence,’ dies at 88,” MIT News, Jan 25, 2016. https://news.mit.edu/2016/marvin-minsky-obituary-0125 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12

  2. Memorandum, Jeffrey Epstein / COUQ Foundation to JPMorgan, Dec 21, 2007. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01578922 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  3. Credit-card statement for Epstein’s JPMorgan account, statement date Aug 25, 2005, p.60 (printed page 7 of 10), within the section for a supplementary card in Ghislaine Maxwell’s name (printed pp.4–8 of 10). Only this page of the production is cited. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01703216 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Email to Epstein, “Questions re Minsky Conf. Needed,” Oct 3, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02012490 ↩ ↩2

  5. Cecile de Jongh to Epstein, “Re: Participants,” Nov 30, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02012923 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Jeffrey Epstein Foundation article, “Jeffrey Epstein Science Philanthropist, Organizes a Global Doomsday Conference,” pp.1–2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01872939 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Deposition of Virginia Giuffre, May 3, 2016, pp.193–194, Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), unsealed by the Second Circuit on Aug 9, 2019 (No. 18-2868, Doc. 283) and refiled in the district court as Doc. 1106-1 on Aug 24, 2020. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.447706/gov.uscourts.nysd.447706.1106.1_1.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  8. Deposition of David Rodgers, transcript pp.123–125 (PDF pp.277–279 of 883), Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), unsealed summary judgment record, No. 18-2868 (2d Cir.), Doc. 283, filed Aug 9, 2019. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.43158/gov.uscourts.ca2.43158.283.0_2.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  9. Jeffrey Epstein to Marvin Minsky, Aug 2, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01856395 ↩ ↩2

  10. Cecile de Jongh to Epstein and reply, “Re: Minsky Conference,” Oct 3, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02020860 ↩

  11. Marvin Minsky to Epstein and Epstein’s reply, “Re: Some other Possible Invitees for NEXT conference,” Nov 11, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01987232 ↩

  12. Epstein email of Dec 2, 2011, quoted in a reply of Dec 8, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02007227 ↩

  13. Lesley Groff to Epstein, “Marvin Minsky,” Mar 21, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02032204 ↩

  14. Email thread, Epstein’s office and Marvin Minsky, Jun 6–10, 2014, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02104379; follow-up of Jun 13, 2014, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02104063 ↩ ↩2

  15. Lesley Groff, schedule for Saturday, June 21, 2014, sent Jun 18, 2014 and forwarded within Epstein’s office Jun 20, 2014. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02103454 ↩ ↩2

  16. Google Calendar reminder for a 5:30pm appointment at Minsky’s home, sent Jun 21, 2014, 9:19 PM. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02103394 ↩

  17. Composite Exhibit 2 to the declaration of Sigrid McCawley, Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), Doc. 21-2, filed Dec 10, 2015. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.447706/gov.uscourts.nysd.447706.21.2.pdf ↩

  18. Full-text searches of the released files (variants “Minsky,” “Marvin Minsky,” “Minsky/Marvin”) and of the RECAP federal court archive (party and full-text searches for “Marvin Minsky”), run September 4, 2026. https://www.courtlistener.com/ ↩

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